VacationSelector

Geneva or Genoa?

Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.

Your match

Geneva
50
match

Wins on good for families and nature & day trips with your weighting.

Genoa
✓ Best match
56
match

Wins on beaches & swimming and value for money with your weighting.

What matters to you?

Pick a travel style or drag the sliders. The match scores above update as you do.

The verdict

Choose Geneva if you want parks and family days out, a wide range of kitchens, and protected countryside within day-trip reach; it asks nothing of the sea and works best in high summer.

Choose Genoa if you want to swim, walk a compact centre and find warmth outside the peak of summer; the sea holds 21°C or more for four months, and its museums sit tightly around the centre.

Scoreboard

Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.

GenevaGenoa
Beaches & swimming. Genoa leads by 73 points.73
GenevaGenoa
Score073
Swim season months04
Beaches 10 km4337
Coast distance279 km0 km
Water distance—0 km
Places to eat. Geneva leads by 20 points.20
GenevaGenoa
Score7050
Restaurants within 2 km of centre1,028691
Effective number of cuisines within 2 km3514
Museums & heritage. Genoa leads by 3 points.3
GenevaGenoa
Score5255
Museums within 10 km3547
Museums within 2 km of centre2033
Share of museums within 2 km %5770
Unesco sites within 50 km21
Nightlife. Geneva and Genoa are level on 50.
GenevaGenoa
Score5050
Drinking venues within 4 km549637
Drinking venues within 2 km of centre427419
Share of drinking venues within 2 km %7866
Nightclubs within 4 km6017
Nature & day trips. Geneva leads by 24 points.24
GenevaGenoa
Score5935
Protected land share 50 km %278
Landscape blanket share 50 km %210
Land share of disc %10061
Park area within 2 km182 hectares29 hectares
Good for families. Geneva leads by 27 points.27
GenevaGenoa
Score6538
Tourist attractions within 2 km2821
Park area within 2 km182 hectares29 hectares
Theme parks within 30 km20
Sights concentration. Genoa leads by 5 points.5
GenevaGenoa
Score5661
Notable places within 2 km99130
Min wikipedia languages55
Value for money. Genoa leads by 33 points.33
GenevaGenoa
Score3568
Price level global110.564.9
Daily budget€248€155
Year-round weather. Genoa leads by 14 points.14
GenevaGenoa
Score5973
Monthly daytime high5.1 °C to 26.8 °C11.7 °C to 27.9 °C
Monthly rainfall55 mm to 94 mm12 mm to 122 mm
Dry months03
0255075100

Where they differ

Geneva is the better base for time out of town: 27% of the surrounding land is protected against 8% around Genoa, and there is far more park space near the centre. It also has more attractions close in, 2 theme parks within reach where Genoa has none, and a much wider range of kitchens to eat across.

Genoa is the one for swimming, with a sea that reaches 25°C in August; Geneva's lake shores never warm to that. It is also the milder year, with highs of 12-28°C against 5-27°C.

Where they are alike

Nightlife lands in much the same place. Genoa has somewhat more places to drink, Geneva about three times as many nightclubs, and in both cities they cluster near the centre, so an evening out is a short walk either way.

Museums and the density of sights are close too. Genoa has somewhat more museums, packed tightly around the centre, and more notable places within walking distance; Geneva answers with 2 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach against Genoa's 1.

Which traveller are you?

Families with young children: Geneva. Attractions and park space sit close to the centre, and there are 2 theme parks within reach where Genoa has none, plus protected countryside for a day out of town.

Anyone whose holiday involves water: Genoa. The sea holds 21°C or more for four months and peaks at 25°C, and the warmer year means beach days are not confined to the two hottest months.

Museum walkers on a short trip: Genoa, where the museums and notable places cluster tightly enough to cover on foot. Choose Geneva instead if eating across a wide range of kitchens matters more than covering ground.

What the numbers don't tell you

The daily budget is a national estimate, the price level for restaurants and hotels in Switzerland and in Italy, not a measurement of either city. A large city can sit well away from its own country's average, by more than the gap between €248 and €155, so treat it as background rather than trip costs.

Beach counts mislead on their own: Geneva has 43 nearby, but they are lake shores with no month of water at 21°C or more, so the swimming season is not comparable. Genoa's dry, warm summer is also its narrowest window, since autumn brings its heaviest rain.

When should you go?

The figures behind each month. Each row is shaded against that destination's own year, so the deepest cell is its best month for that measure and the palest its weakest. Shades are not comparable between the two rows.

J
F
M
A
M
J
J
A
S
O
N
D
Daytime high, °C
Geneva
5
7
12
16
20
24
27
26
21
16
9
6
Genoa
12
12
15
18
21
25
27
28
25
20
16
13
Sea temperature, °C
Geneva
No coastline within reach
Genoa
14
13
14
15
18
22
24
25
23
20
18
16
Rainfall, mm
Geneva
71
55
61
66
77
81
77
80
87
94
87
88
Genoa
58
41
47
67
40
26
12
20
72
101
122
89
Daylight, hours per day
Geneva
9
10
12
14
15
16
15
14
13
11
10
9
Genoa
9
10
12
13
15
16
15
14
13
11
10
9
Sunshine, hours per day
Geneva
2
3
6
6
7
8
9
8
6
4
2
2
Genoa
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
10
7
6
4
4

Temperature and rainfall are thirty-year climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Geneva: 1991-2020 normals, Geneve-Cointrin (5.7 km from centre). Genoa: 1991-2020 normals, Genova / Sestri (6.7 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Geneva is at its best from June to August, when highs reach 24-27°C, though rain holds at 77-81mm even at the peak of summer; no month here is dry. Winter is genuinely cold, with January highs near 5°C.

Genoa's warm season runs from May to September at 21-28°C, and July and August are dry, 12-20mm, so beach days are dependable. Its trap is autumn: October and November both bring above 100mm, the wettest of its year.

Getting there

Flying fromGenevaGenoa
LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2
1 h 35 m
€91-200
GVA · 5 km
1 h 55 m
no fares
GOA · 7 km
MadridMAD
1 h 50 m
no fares
GVA · 5 km
2 h 0 m
€63-91
MXP · 137 km
LisbonLIS
2 h 25 m
€156-181
1 stop
GVA · 5 km
2 h 35 m
€78-142
MXP · 137 km
New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA
8 h 0 m
no fares
GVA · 5 km
8 h 15 m
€542-635
1 stop
MXP · 137 km
IstanbulIST, SAW
2 h 55 m
€147-338
GVA · 5 km
2 h 40 m
€140-309
MXP · 137 km
DubaiDXB, DWC
6 h 25 m
€318-351
1 stop
GVA · 5 km
6 h 10 m
€375-563
MXP · 137 km
AthensATH
2 h 40 m
no fares
GVA · 5 km
2 h 25 m
€91-99
MXP · 137 km
FrankfurtFRA, HHN
1 h 10 m
no fares
GVA · 5 km
1 h 15 m
€67-76
LIN · 119 km
PortoOPO
2 h 10 m
€127-171
1 stop
GVA · 5 km
2 h 25 m
no fares
MXP · 137 km
BeijingPEK, PKX
10 h 20 m
no fares
GVA · 5 km
10 h 10 m
€710-815
1 stop
MXP · 137 km

The busiest departure cities for these two, with a place kept for each other part of the world. Busiest means arriving passengers where an official count exists, and where none does, the number of non-stop services flown: official route statistics are published by the European reporting countries and by nobody else, so a table ranked on them alone would offer a reader in New York or Tokyo ten European cities. Flying times are estimated from the distance between airports, and every row is a city flown non-stop to both. Where the typical offer connects anyway, the stops are shown. Under each figure is the airport the flight lands at and how far that is from the centre, because the nearest airport is not always the one a route is flown to. Where both columns name the same airport it is one flight, and the difference between the two is the distance printed beside it. Typical return fares for 2026-08 to 2026-10, cached market data up to 7 days old. The figure is the middle half of the offers found, so a single price means they agreed and a range means they did not; for a typical route that middle half spans about a quarter of the median, and for the least settled routes rather more than the median itself.

Before you go

MeasureGenevaGenoa
Official languageFrench, German, Italian, RomanshItalian
CurrencySwiss Franc (CHF)Euro (EUR)
SocketsCJ230 V, 50 HzCFL230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number112112
Elevation403 m20 m
Main airportGeneva International Airport (GVA)5 km from centre140 non-stop destinationsGenoa Cristoforo Colombo Airport (GOA)7 km from centre23 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureGenevaGenoa
City population209,061558,745
People per km²13,1482,325
Museums within 10 km3551
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km21
Distinct cuisines in the centre8041
Swim season, months above 21 °C–4 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Geneva or Genoa somewhere new.

Browse every destination we have measured

Sources

© OpenStreetMap contributors, data available under the Open Database Licence. Place counts include data from Overture Maps Foundation (CDLA Permissive 2.0), assembled from Meta, Microsoft, Foursquare and other providers. Notable-place counts from Wikidata (CC0), weighted by Wikipedia language editions. Ground elevations sampled from the Mapzen terrain tiles via OpenTopoData, merging SRTM, ASTER, NED, EU-DEM and national sources. Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. Airport data from OurAirports (public domain). Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. Public holidays from Nager.Date (MIT). Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates. Non-stop route lists from the "Airlines and destinations" tables on English Wikipedia airport articles, by Wikipedia contributors, reused under CC BY-SA 4.0. Currency from the ISO 4217 register maintained by SIX, cross-checked against country data from GeoNames (CC BY 4.0). Price level from World Bank open data (PPP conversion factor for private consumption and official exchange rate), CC BY 4.0. Time zones from GeoNames (CC BY 4.0); clock offsets computed from the IANA time zone database. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. Daylight hours computed from each destination's latitude using the NOAA solar position algorithm. Typical fares from Travelpayouts (Aviasales data). Route-level air passenger statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0.

Scores follow rubric v2; snapshot generated 2026-08-31. Typical prices can be up to 7 days old. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.